The Government has taken several policy initiatives in the past few years and brought in reforms to encourage indigenous design, development and manufacture of defence equipment, there by promoting self-reliance in defence manufacturing & technology in the country. While giving a written reply to to Dr Anil Agrawal in Rajya Sabha, Raksha Rajya Mantri Ajay Bhatt said that these initiatives, inter-alia, include according priority to procurement of capital items from domestic sources under Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP) 2020; Announcement of 18 major defence platforms for industry led design & development in March 2022; Notification of four ‘Positive Indigenisation Lists’ of total 411 items of Services and three ‘Positive Indigenisation Lists’ of total 3738 items of Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs), for which there would be an embargo on the import beyond the timelines indicated against them; Simplification of Industrial licensing process with longer validity period; Liberalisation of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy allowing 74 per cent FDI under automatic route; Simplification of Make Procedure; Launch of Mission DefSpace; Launch of Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) scheme involving start-ups & Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs); Implementation of Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India) Order 2017; Launch of an indigenisation portal namely SRIJAN to facilitate indigenisation by Indian Industry including MSMEs; Reforms in Offset policy with thrust on attracting investment and Transfer of Technology for Defence manufacturing by assigning higher multipliers; and Establishment of two Defence Industrial Corridors, one each in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu; Opening up of Defence Research & Development (R&D) for industry, start-ups and academia with 25 percent of defence R&D budget; Progressive increase in allocation of Defence Budget of military modernisation for procurement from domestic sources, etc. With focus on indigenisation and procurement from domestic industries, all the major areas of domestic defence production ecosystem such as weapons, ammunition, fighter aircrafts, helicopters, missile systems, warships, submarines, armoured vehicles, radars, communication systems, surveillance systems, etc. have benefited from the aforesaid initiatives and also given boost to the growth of domestic industries including MSMEs & start-ups.
